Several years ago, I read one of my poems, “I’m Still Your Doctor,” at the World AIDS Day memorial service, I was surprised that my voice broke as I spoke. I felt ambushed by my feelings. But that’s the nature of grief, especially for healthcare workers. We tend to stuff grief down instead of processing it, so it sneaks up on us at unexpected and unwanted times.
Once, I started crying as I combed my hair in the morning, getting ready to go to work. Was it resentment at overwork, or lack of sleep? Yes, but also, a patient had just died. Not my first patient to die, nor the last. But the first one I found myself grieving for. I wrote this poem many years later, which appears in my chapbook, Rope Made of Bandages.